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I live in a small suburban community, across the street from an elementary school. I have lived here for 26 years, and love it. Love the neighbourhood and love the school, which was built in a low-slung California style with an open courtyard and outside-access classrooms.

My kids went to the school. I know many of the teachers and principals, past and present, and mostly they are a wonderful lot. I love the activity and the buzz, the squeals of the children, the thunk of basketballs on the court and the screeching instruments during band practice.

And I’m a good neighbour, like others on my block. I pick up the schoolyard trash. I sweep up the cigarette butts, break up weekend fights and call the appropriate authorities when the school is being vandalized and when hookers are entertaining johns in the parking lot.

Ah, yes, the parking lot. When I moved here there was a magnificent maple tree outside the school’s main entrance, casting shade over a small lawn where the kids would play catch or plop down and eat lunch. Some years later, the tree was chopped down, the little paradise was paved and converted to parking spots for the staff.

This, I’ve never understood. Why are big chunks of school grounds, many with precious little green space for students to use, blacktopped for free parking for public employees?

And why, if teachers don’t get a coveted on-site spot, do they think nothing of overflowing on to residential streets where they leave their cars all day long, a lament you’ll hear from most anyone living within stone’s throw of a school.

For years, some of us on my block have quietly waged a polite battle with teachers who park in front of our houses. We have asked them, directly and through often frustrated principals, to please use the dozens of empty parking spots just a few hundred feet away beside the park, or the spots that taxpayers added for them on the other side of the school, which are not in front of houses.

Most have kindly obliged, but a handful remain defiantly resolute in declaring their rights. It’s a public street. We don’t want to walk that far. Maybe residents should pay an annual fee and get the city to put up restricted parking signs.

To which I say, why don’t you just be a good neighbour? Why don’t you just park where it doesn’t affect the residents? Why don’t you just show a little common sense and maybe even some reciprocal community courtesy, especially for the seniors on this street who need access to their homes?

They don’t much like the questions.

I have had teachers tell me to f — off, others have flipped me the bird, another went to his union for guidance and one banged on my front door and then screamed at me like a banshee because I had temporarily blocked her car in the teachers’ “private” parking lot.

It is, admittedly, a petty dispute, but after each unpleasantry, one walks away perplexed by the strident sense of entitlement.

My town has only one high school and it is an aging dump. Replacement plans have been in the works for years, stymied by funding issues, concerns over a Chinese burial ground and, naturally, where to put the huge parking lot. When I inquire at public meetings about the latter, I’m met with blank stares by school trustees, told that it’s a requirement and that underground parking is too cost-prohibitive.

And so when the Vancouver school board announced recently that, starting in September, it will be charging teachers to park in the 3,500 parking spots on Vancouver school properties, I applauded the financially motivated chutzpah.

The proposed $10 to $15 monthly fee is ridiculously low, but it’s nonetheless a great idea that should be mandated at public schools throughout the province.

I can hear the righteous indignation already, the accusation that this move (and this column) is just more teacher-bashing, along with all the requisite sad stories about how tough their jobs are without having to worry about parking or, perish the thought, taking transit.

Please. Public school teachers work from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. with a lunch break, so enough with the grousing about extracurricular work or marking papers at home. Teachers get three months off, not including stat holidays, every year. Teachers get several paid professional days every year. And all that for a salary that many full-time, equally educated, year-round workers would envy.

Yes, it’s tough going for the teaching profession, especially in these changing economic and demographic times, and the dedication of those who do the job well is universally appreciated.

But few workplaces these days aren’t struggling with budgets and cutbacks and seeking solutions with minimal negative consequence. The public education system, financed by taxpayers, is no different, nor should it be.

If charging teachers and other school staff for on-site parking at public schools is one of the solutions, let’s welcome them to the real world.

Oh, and if you believe that teachers are entitled to free parking, and well you might, one would hope you would also agree that it’s an employment perk that should be enjoyed by all public servants. Let’s start with nurses.

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